"Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development

Stina Matthiesen; Pernille  Bjørn; Lise Møller Petersen

doi:10.1145/2531602.2531612

"Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development

Stina Matthiesen, Pernille Bjørn, Lise Møller Petersen

Technologies in Practice (TiP)

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

Abstract

We report on an ethnographic study of an outsourcing global software development (GSD) setup between an Indian IT vendor and an IT development division of a Danish bank. We investigate how the local IT development work is shaped by the global setup in GSD and argue that the bank had cultural blind spots toward the changes in Denmark. Three critical issues were neglected due to the cultural blind spots: 1) increased number of interruptions, 2) lack of translucence of remote colleagues’ work, and 3) the re-definition of boundaries between work and articulation work. The implications of these findings include considerations for how to organize GSD practices and prepare the organizational changes that occur when moving from a co-located software development organization to an inter-organizational geographically distributed organization. Also, our findings open up discussions about the professional identity of IT developers within GSD, including extending the qualifications for IT developers.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing : CSCW '14
Number of pages	13
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Publication date	2014
Pages	1107-1119
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-2540-0
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531612
Publication status	Published - 2014
Event	ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing : http://cscw.acm.org/ - Maryland, Baltimore, United States Duration: 15 Feb 2014 → 19 Feb 2014 Conference number: 17 https://cscw.acm.org/2014/

Conference

Conference	ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
Number	17
Location	Maryland
Country/Territory	United States
City	Baltimore
Period	15/02/2014 → 19/02/2014
Internet address	https://cscw.acm.org/2014/

Keywords

Global software development (GSD)
ethnographic study
cultural blind spots
articulation work
local work practices

Access to Document

10.1145/2531602.2531612

NexGSD: Next Generation Technology for Global Software Development
Bardram, J. (PI), Bjørn, P. (CoI), Babar, M. A. (CoI), Chauhan, A. (CoI), Esbensen, M. (CoI), Jensen, R. E. (CoI), Matthiesen, S. (CoI), Jeuris, S. (CoI), Zahedi, M. (CoI), Jensen, R. E. (CoI), Tell, P. (CoI), Dittrich, Y. (CoI) & Giuffrida, R. (PI)
IFD - Innovation Fund Denmark
01/01/2011 → 31/12/2016
Project: Research

Cite this

Matthiesen, S., Bjørn, P., & Petersen, L. M. (2014). "Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing: CSCW '14 (pp. 1107-1119). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531612

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abstract = "We report on an ethnographic study of an outsourcing global software development (GSD) setup between an Indian IT vendor and an IT development division of a Danish bank. We investigate how the local IT development work is shaped by the global setup in GSD and argue that the bank had cultural blind spots toward the changes in Denmark. Three critical issues were neglected due to the cultural blind spots: 1) increased number of interruptions, 2) lack of translucence of remote colleagues{\textquoteright} work, and 3) the re-definition of boundaries between work and articulation work. The implications of these findings include considerations for how to organize GSD practices and prepare the organizational changes that occur when moving from a co-located software development organization to an inter-organizational geographically distributed organization. Also, our findings open up discussions about the professional identity of IT developers within GSD, including extending the qualifications for IT developers.",

keywords = "Global software development (GSD), ethnographic study, cultural blind spots, articulation work, local work practices, Global software development (GSD), ethnographic study, cultural blind spots, articulation work, local work practices",

author = "Stina Matthiesen and Pernille Bj{\o}rn and Petersen, {Lise M{\o}ller}",

year = "2014",

doi = "10.1145/2531602.2531612",

language = "English",

isbn = "978-1-4503-2540-0",

pages = "1107--1119",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",

address = "United States",

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}

Matthiesen, S, Bjørn, P & Petersen, LM 2014, "Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development. in Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing: CSCW '14. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 1107-1119, ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing , Baltimore, United States, 15/02/2014. https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531612

"Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development. / Matthiesen, Stina; Bjørn, Pernille ; Petersen, Lise Møller.
Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing: CSCW '14. Association for Computing Machinery, 2014. p. 1107-1119.

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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T1 - "Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development

AU - Matthiesen, Stina

AU - Bjørn, Pernille

AU - Petersen, Lise Møller

N1 - Conference code: 17

PY - 2014

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N2 - We report on an ethnographic study of an outsourcing global software development (GSD) setup between an Indian IT vendor and an IT development division of a Danish bank. We investigate how the local IT development work is shaped by the global setup in GSD and argue that the bank had cultural blind spots toward the changes in Denmark. Three critical issues were neglected due to the cultural blind spots: 1) increased number of interruptions, 2) lack of translucence of remote colleagues’ work, and 3) the re-definition of boundaries between work and articulation work. The implications of these findings include considerations for how to organize GSD practices and prepare the organizational changes that occur when moving from a co-located software development organization to an inter-organizational geographically distributed organization. Also, our findings open up discussions about the professional identity of IT developers within GSD, including extending the qualifications for IT developers.

AB - We report on an ethnographic study of an outsourcing global software development (GSD) setup between an Indian IT vendor and an IT development division of a Danish bank. We investigate how the local IT development work is shaped by the global setup in GSD and argue that the bank had cultural blind spots toward the changes in Denmark. Three critical issues were neglected due to the cultural blind spots: 1) increased number of interruptions, 2) lack of translucence of remote colleagues’ work, and 3) the re-definition of boundaries between work and articulation work. The implications of these findings include considerations for how to organize GSD practices and prepare the organizational changes that occur when moving from a co-located software development organization to an inter-organizational geographically distributed organization. Also, our findings open up discussions about the professional identity of IT developers within GSD, including extending the qualifications for IT developers.

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KW - ethnographic study

KW - cultural blind spots

KW - articulation work

KW - local work practices

KW - Global software development (GSD)

KW - ethnographic study

KW - cultural blind spots

KW - articulation work

KW - local work practices

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DO - 10.1145/2531602.2531612

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 978-1-4503-2540-0

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EP - 1119

BT - Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

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T2 - ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

Y2 - 15 February 2014 through 19 February 2014

ER -

"Figure Out How to Code with the Hands of Others”: Recognizing Cultural Blind Spots in Global Software Development

Abstract

Conference

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Projects

NexGSD: Next Generation Technology for Global Software Development

Cite this